The first group exhibition of the year: Onko, and then Chishin.
This title for our permanent exhibition has been used since the gallery was founded twenty years ago. It now feels almost nostalgic.
At a turning point when the times themselves seem poised for profound change, why return to this title for a group exhibition?
As a student, while studying abroad in Paris, I began the gallery in Shanghai. Naming the gallery after myself could be seen as a quiet resolution—not to bring dishonor to my own name, not to leave myself any escape route.
Twenty years have passed—at once long and fleeting.
In Shanghai, from M50 to Fuxing Zhong Road, from Taiyuan Residential Quarter to Zhujiajiao, the gallery endured three years of the pandemic, five rounds of quarantine, and numerous relocations. And yet, it continues to hold exhibitions as it always has.
Looking back to the early days of its founding, I think of the artists and staff who supported it, and of the pride in making a profession out of what one truly loves. In this AGI era, amid relentless and rapid global change, what remains constant and unshaken?
It makes one quietly wish to reflect, if only once.
That reflection takes the form of this four-artist exhibition.
Yuki MATSUEDA, with whom I have worked for over fifteen years; Sangsun BAE, with whom I am collaborating for the first time; Shingo IGUCHI, whose work I presented since the era of the Shanghai World Expo commemorative prints; and Minako ISHIKAWA, who held her first solo exhibition in the former French Concession of Shanghai—together they form a constellation of artists fitting for the theme of Onko Chishin.
On February 6, after returning from Art Basel Qatar, the seaside park in Tokyo lay under its first snowfall of the year, yet a keirin race proceeded as scheduled through the snow. That same day, gold, silver, the dollar, Bitcoin, and U.S. Treasury bonds all fell simultaneously, sending tremors through both the financial world and the realm of Web3.
In the United States, three million pieces of evidence from Ebostan Island have stirred daily controversy. Notably, much of the discourse unfolds not on television, but across social media platforms.
I look forward to the new space shaped by the works of these four artists.
